The Center for American Music, part of the University of Pittsburgh Library System and housed in the Stephen Foster Memorial building, engages in research, teaching, interpretive presentations, and conservation of music of the United States of America. The Center for American Music is dedicated to expanding and documenting knowledge of American music and its cultural and social roles in American life.

The Center for American Music's Foster Hall Collection reflects a broad cross-section of American popular culture, especially from the 1840s to the 1930s. In addition to containing one of the most significant collections of 19th-century American music, the Center for American Music is also the principal repository for materials concerning the life and music of Stephen Collins Foster, a Pittsburgh native who was America's first professional songwriter. Voices Across Time, the Center's education project, is creating tools for teachers of middle- and high-school social studies and language arts courses to use music every day in the classroom.